2 Die in Crash as They Flee Motorcyclist : Accident: A shop owner has been arrested on a murder charge after the deaths of a Reseda couple.

A Reseda couple terrorized by a motorcyclist during a traffic dispute on Victory Boulevard died Thursday when they tried to escape him and smashed their car into a tree, Los Angeles police said.

Martin Joseph Ruthman, the motorcyclist who kicked the car’s door and shouted obscenities at its occupants as they tried to avoid him, sped away from the 10:45 a.m. crash near Yolanda Avenue in Reseda, but was apprehended later at his Sherman Oaks repair shop, according to Detective Rick Swanston.

Ruthman, 33, of Reseda was being held without bail on suspicion of murder. His wife, Sandra, 27, and friend Dolores Glickman, 49, of Granada Hills, both of whom were riding their own motorcycles with Ruthman, were questioned and released.

The dead couple, a 45-year-old man and his 52-year-old wife, were not identified pending notification of relatives. Both died immediately after their Honda Accord slammed broadside into a tree on the south side of the street.

According to witnesses and police, the dispute began about two miles west of the crash site, near Winnetka Avenue. Ruthman and the car were traveling east on Victory Boulevard, and witnesses said Ruthman swerved across traffic lanes to prevent the car behind him from passing.

When the car passed him, Ruthman became enraged, Swanston said. He gunned the engine of his Harley Davidson and pulled alongside the car, kicking the passenger door and screaming angrily at the couple, who accelerated to about 50 m.p.h. in an attempt to escape, witnesses said.

“It was like a chase,” said Eitan Janai, 40, of Calabasas, who watched the incident unfold in his rear-view mirror.

Another witness, Gary Morgan, 21, of Van Nuys said that when Ruthman swerved in front of the car, the driver appeared to brake and turn to the right. The car began skidding sideways and then jumped the curb, scraped along a brick wall and hit the tree.

Ruthman looked over his shoulder at the wreck and roared off along Victory Boulevard, Morgan said. “He just flew by me,” Morgan said.

Police traced the license plates on one of the three motorcycles and later found Ruthman and the two women at Hi-Tech Automotive Services, Ruthman’s Woodman Avenue motorcycle repair shop.